A pair of worked wood fragments from a lakeside site in Greece has pushed the record for hand-held wooden tools back to about 430,000 years ago.
An international team led by scientists from the University of Reading, the University of Tübingen, and the Senckenberg Nature Research Society identified the artifacts at the Marathousa 1 archaeological site in the Peloponnese region of central Greece.
The study, published in PNAS, describes two wooden objects that were shaped and used by humans. One was made from alder wood. The other came from either willow or poplar.
Researchers said the find pushes back evidence for this type of wooden tool use by at least 40,000 years.
The site also contained stone tools and the remains of elephants and other animals, suggesting the area was once used for butchering prey near the edge of an ancient lake.
Early humans occupied the site during the Middle Pleistocene, a period spanning roughly 774,000 to 129,000 years ago.
“The Middle Pleistocene was a critical phase in human evolution, during which more complex behaviors developed. The earliest reliable evidence of the targeted technological use of plants also dates from this period,” said Professor Katerina Harvati, a paleoanthropologist and expert in human evolution who leads the long-term research program at Marathousa 1.
Previous discoveries at the site, including stone and bone artifacts, had already shown that the people living there carried out a wide range of activities with considerable skill. The team then closely examined preserved wood recovered during excavations.
“Unlike stones, wooden objects need special conditions to survive over long periods of time,” said Dr Annemieke Milks, described in the study materials as a leading expert in early wooden tools.
“We examined all the wooden remains closely, looking at their surfaces under microscopes. We found marks from chopping and carving on two objects, clear signs that early humans had shaped them.”
One of the artifacts was a small section of an alder branch or trunk with shaping marks and signs of wear from use. Researchers said it may have been used for digging in soft ground near the lakeshore or possibly for stripping bark from trees.
The second artifact was a smaller piece of willow or poplar wood that also showed evidence of carving and possible use by humans.
Researchers also studied a larger alder fragment with grooves carved into its surface. After analysis, they concluded the marks had been left by a large carnivore, possibly a bear, rather than humans.
“The oldest wooden tools come from places such as the United Kingdom, Zambia, Germany, and China and include weapons, digging sticks, and tool handles. However, they are all more recent than our finds from Marathousa 1,” Milks said.
The source material said there is only one older piece of evidence of wood used by humans, from the Kalambo Falls site in Zambia, dating to around 476,000 years ago. It said that wood was used as structural material, not as a tool.
“We have discovered the oldest wooden tools known to date, as well as the first evidence of this kind from southeastern Europe,” Harvati said.
“This shows once again how exceptionally good the conditions at the Marathousa 1 site are for preservation. And the fact that large carnivores left their mark near the butchered elephant alongside human activity indicates fierce competition between the two.”
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